Matt Damon is totally chill about video games now

July 20,2016 19:06

I'm really interested to see where entertainment heads as these video games, the graphics are getting so good, and VR is getting so good, and you know, what's going to happen to movies? What are the implications for movies, and does this morph into a ...and more »

Matt Damon admitted during a Monday "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit that he's interested in working on a video game.I've never been approached to do that, I'd totally be into it. I'm really interested to see where entertainment heads as these video games, the graphics are getting so good, and VR is getting so good, and you know, what's going to happen to movies? What are the implications for movies, and does this morph into a new kind of story telling, and what is that, and can I be a part of it? You know, ultimately those of us who make movies are storytellers and we want to gather you around and tell you stories. If gaming is the way to do that I'm all for looking into it, but nobody has asked me as of yet.Â It's a seeming change for an actor who refused to lend his likeness or voice to The Bourne Conspiracy, a decent-but-flawed 2008 video game based on the Damon-led blockbuster action series. In fairness, Damon implied at the time that it wasn't the kind of game he wanted to see."I lobbied hard to not make a first-person-shooter game but to make it more like Myst, which was a great, interesting puzzle you tried to solve â€” you know, to play with his amnesia or his memory," Damon told The Boston Globe in 2008.Â "They weren't interested. They made the [game] anyway, without my likeness." He then added: Â "I'd like to think that I at least made them more aware of the issues. That's step one. Step two is changing behavior."High Moon Studios, the game's developer, did approach Damon's people â€” they never met with him one-on-one â€” about getting the actor involved. But Meelat Sadat, the studio's marketing and PR head at the time Â (who admitted to MTV that he didn't know about the Myst pitch) detected a general lack of interest."We got the sense that his interest in games overall was marginal, and we decided to move away from celebrity involvement and take our Bourne in an original direction," Sadat said.Remember that The Bourne Conspiracy came out in 2008. Games have evolved significantly over the past eight years and from more than just a technical standpoint.Â Releases like Gone Home and Journey have opened players' eyes to non-violent or minimally violent games that have more to impart than the visceral satisfaction of shooting a virtual threat in the face. Time and endlessly creative developers have proven that games can elicit a wide range of emotions.There will always be a place for violent action games, but it's also easy to imagine Damon's "let's make Bourne like Myst" angle being taken much more seriously in this day and age.Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.